Reading 4

From my understanding for Reading 4.3 , "What is evidence", it is about how evidence are divided into two category, circumstantial and testimonial evidence. Circumstantial evidence can be explain as an evidence that we see for our self. Meaning to say that, the evidence itself indicate that the things was related to the crime. While Testimonial evidence refers to an eyewitness, the person who testify that they have seen the accuse commit the crime themselves. In the whole reading, it explain on a situation of a kidnapping incident whereby a son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped,hold for ransom and eventually died in the process to rescue the victim. Here, both the evidence was used to conduct the investigation. It can be said that, evidence is an important thing in doing an investigation. It helps a lot to find the criminal and we have proof for the criminal's crime. Overall for this reading, at first i have some difficulties in understanding the main purpose that my classmate wanted to present for their presentation for this topic. It's okay as they were unprepared for the presentation.

Reading 4.4, 'Statistic'.I could say that this was the most anxious reading of the topic as it involves number. I can understand the difficulties of my classmates in preparing the presentation for this reading. i guess it's lame to say that this topic was not that interesting as we are DECOM'ers and number is not in our field. But overall, it's okay! In this reading, it explains how statistic are divided into two meaning, plural - information about any phenomenon/activity that expressed in numerical form (ex:vital statistic), and singular - denotes the art and science of collecting, presenting, analysing and interpreting numeral data.There are 4 ways of misleading data. Unqualified average(mean,median and mode), Fallacious sampling(Sample that is wrong based on the wrong information), Percentages unaccompanied by actual numbers(No specific figure) and Misleading presentation(Graph,Charts and diagrams to mislead impression) .Hearing this, it does sound boring and old fashion. Our interest quickly lost but we tried to stay on the understanding as long as we could. Although it was quite difficult to understand, we did manage to do some exercise to improve the understanding.

Reading 4.5, 'Crooked and Fallacious Thinking' and 'More of crooked and fallacious thinking'. Amongst all the reading in chapter 4, this was for me, the easiest to understand that the other two reading. This reading is more into one's own perception. To come to and think of it, it can be said that it involves psychology factor. This can be call as critical thinking. It explain that there are 5 common forms of crooked and fallacious trends; Transfer Device, Circular Argument, False Analogy, Either-or assumption and Equivocation. I can summarize that everyone have their own crooked and fallacious thinking. It has became a lifestyle in our society. Thus, people have their own perspective and judgment towards any issue that appears.

Critical Literacy : Reading Unit 3

For reading 3.1, it is an article about a disable girl that wanted to go to school but was later on rejected because of the disabilities. When I was to give the 10 elements for this article, I did have some difficulties. It is not because of the article, but time. Although we were given about one hour, I think that in critical literacy, when we want to comment on one’s article, we need to have time to think about how to structure the 10 elements. Despite all, I still manage to submit the article. I can say that the reading part for 3.1 was quite easy from our previous reading. Here, the article is stated clearly and it is easy to understand.

For reading 3.3 my classmates presented on “Critical literacy: a linguistic perspective”. This topic tells about the development of the linguistic tools readers need to enable them to recognize certain global or key elements of the text. Basically, from my own understanding this topic is discussing about using different of more standardize words to describe things. To be more clear, high lexis words. Other than that, I did have some question regarding what was actually trying to be present by my classmates. Although the whole reading topic was difficult to understand at first, they manage to explain it very clearly using examples of word and asking question so that all of the classmates understand what they was tying to present. I did ask a question about how effectively the words will influence the people who are reading it. Later, our Madam explains that it depends on the whole text itself. By that, readers will feel convince and more interested if the text that they are reading are using standardize and powerful word. They will think that the article is written by a professional or a person with experience.

For reading 3.4 discusses about “Speech and speakers: the formation of individuals in discourse and genre”. This is the most interesting reading as it tells about ideal readers and stereotype. In this whole reading it tells about how writer persuade their readers to be ideal readers. From my understanding, an ideal reader is the person who believes in what the writer writes. To be clearer, example: a person reading the horoscope as his/her daily routine. Usually, this ideal reader believes that their life revolves on the writer article. They believe it because their life is exactly the same as what the writer has written. Once they think that it is true, they would like to continue to read the article. Personally, I can say that I’m an ideal reader. I do sometimes believe what had the writer wrote. Sometimes I could say that it is a consequence. Even some researchers in Malaysia like Dato’ Fadzillah Khamsah has done some research about this issue. But it depends on the individual itself whether to believe it or not.

Critical Literacy - Reading Unit 2

In the reading “battling the bullies” the writer tells us about how children nowadays are facing with every parent’s nightmare, Bully. According to this article, based on a psychiatrist said that it is common for parents not to realize their child is being bullied even after having some symptoms’. Clearly, in the whole article, the writer is condemning the bullies. Because of bullies, they are many children became mentally abuse and this will affect their growing stage if it is not detected earlier. The writer proofs his study by adding the opinion and suggestion of psychologist so that people can see how serious this matter is. Thus, writer advice parents to be alert and aware of their children behavior.

For reading 2.2, this chapter mainly present about “Language, Perspective, ideology”. When my classmates presented about this topic, there were more confusion than understanding. However, they are not the one to be blame as it is one’s false not to read the reading before the presentation. Mainly, in this chapter, it tells us about the use of how text will contain linguistic feature that act as indicators of the perspective and ideologies of people. Here, it is stated that linguistic reflexes of differences of perspective across speaker of the same language. It is to differentiate how people think because different people have different perspective. The language is sometimes direct and high lexis. If we listen or read a text, we would know what the writer purpose in writing the article is and differentiate between two articles that convey the message.

For reading 2.3, it tells us about text and textualities. Compared to the reading before, this text is easier to understand and has been presented clearly by my classmates. Here, it discuss about text that has the combination of sign. The words that really attract my interest is “signifier” and “signified". Both sound almost the same and nearly the same meaning but it is totally different. Signifier is words and expression. It is used to represent an object. For example, “Nancy is a girl”. So the girl represents the subject. But for signified, it represents the real girl. So for me, this word is very interesting. For the presentation of my classmate about the whole article, I can say that I understand what they are trying to convey. The uses of visual to explain really help me understand that there are tools for cultural studies. Example ; the use of Dunhill advertisement to promote a product. The uses of a connotation word that can be turn into a denotation word in an advertisement really amaze me. How can people uses a negative aspect and turn it into an aspect where people can accept.

Overall for unit 2 reading , I can understand what is being presented.